Guest post by Leo Igwe

The world may not have seen the last in terms of the inane witch-hunting campaign being waged by Pentecostal pastors in Nigeria. New christian witch-hunters – pastors and churches – are emerging with force and ferocity. Another ‘Kill the Witch’ miracle crusade has just been announced to take place next week. It will be held in Calabar, the capital of Cross River State in Southern Nigeria.

According to a poster being circulated in the city, the event :”Ikot Ishie/Ikot Ansa Miracle Crusade I AM THAT I AM” is to be held on March 3-5 with a ‘Tarry Night’ on Friday March 7 at AB Martins Field by Ikot Ishie Market in Calabar.

The theme of the event ‘That Witch Must Die’ is a clear indication of what the program is all about – an event to incite violence and hatred against innocent citizens.

The poster has this telephone number ’08161257384′ as the ‘prayer line’. Prophet Bassey J. Udosen is the main organiser while Pastor Zack Orji, a Nollywood actor, and Pastor Larry Koldswaet, one of the actors in Helen Ukpabio’s notorious movie ‘The End of the Wicked’, will be preaching at the event.

Calabar is the headquarters of Helen Ukpabio’s Liberty Gospel Church. Belief in witchcraft is very strong in the city. Vulnerable persons, particularly children, are often targeted and abused in the name of sorcery. The activities of Pentecostal churches and pastors have been linked to the persecution of child witches in the region. Efforts to bring these dark age-minded evangelists to book have proved ineffective as demonstrated in the recent announcement of this ‘Kill the Witch’ crusade.

Church programs that literally say: ‘That Witch Must Die’ expressly undermine efforts to end child witch hunting in the region. Nigeria will not win the war against witchcraft-related abuse of children if it continues to turn a blind eye on church programs like this that sanction the killing of witches.

This is because these programs reinforce the link between misfortune, sorcery, and these vulnerable innocent members of the population. They recharge the superstitious notion that witchcraft is evil and any alleged witch is dangerous to the society, deserves no mercy, and should be killed.

Witch hunting is a traditional practice which has been appropriated by Pentecostal church entrepreneurs in their quest for evangelical relevance and capital.

The theme ‘That Witch must die’ is inspired by the Biblical injunction in Exodus 22.18 which says ‘Suffer not a witch to live’. So, the christian connection to this modern day witch hunt is evident.

A ‘Kill the Witch’ miracle crusade is not an exercise in freedom of religion as many people may think. It is actually an abuse of the right to freedom of religion. Such a crusade promotes witchcraft accusations, which is illegal in Nigeria. It incites hatred and violence against accused persons, which is a criminal offence. Unfortunately, we have yet to see any church or pastor prosecuted for this offence in Nigeria.

That notwithstanding, we shall not let up on the pressure on the authorities in Calabar, Cross River State and Nigeria to take action and bring these witch hunters to justice. We shall not abandon the campaign to protect children from the vicious and virulent campaign of Nigeria’s Pentecostal pastors who are trapped in a medieval mind warp.

We shall continue to shine the light on the schemes of these charlatans who are masquerading as pastors, using churches as fronts and witchcraft belief as a power base to demonize innocent children and exploit poor ignorance members of the community.

So join efforts with us to stop this ‘Kill the Witch’ Miracle Crusade in Calabar. Contact the organisers through their Facebook or Twitter accounts, or better, through the telephone/prayer line contact on the event poster. Let these evangelical con artists know that the world is watching, and will hold them accountable someday.

Witch hunting by Pentecostal churches in Nigeria must stop.

Leo Igwe

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ron Lindsay wrote a post commenting on Ben Radford’s post. It’s good.

The concluding paragraphs:

That false reports happen is not disputed. Nor does anyone dispute that for the individual falsely accused, it’s a very unfortunate, sometimes tragic, situation. But is this a widespread problem? That’s the key question. One might think so from the attention Ben has given to it and his use of the adverb “often,” but, actually, the evidence seems to indicate it is not a widespread problem. For example, a British study last year indicated that there were 35 prosecutions for false accusations of rape during a 17-month period while there were 5,681 prosecutions for rape in the same period of time. The suggestion that false accusations of rape are commonplace does not appear to be supported by the evidence. Moreover, this suggestion can be very harmful if it persuades people that reports of rape should be treated with special suspicion.

Here’s the bottom line. All accusations of sexual assault should be treated seriously and investigated thoroughly. There is no a priori justification for treating the accuser with suspicion instead of compassion. The determination of whether a sexual assault actually occurred should be based on the evidence uncovered during the investigation of that case, not on generalizations about the behavior of people derived from other, distinct cases — however prominent or obscure.

That’s actually quite a good recommendation for a lot of practices and situations: you need to look at the specifics, and think about them, rather than generalizing about categories and then acting accordingly. You might even say that’s good skeptical practice. Never mind speculations, never mind what patterns you see, never mind stories; consider the particulars.

You know what else that’s good advice for? Treating people like equals. Never mind treating women like fluffy bunnies who are interested in shoes and shopping and nothing else; treat individual women as individuals, not as examples of a Feminine Essence. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to other categories.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Speaking of foreign domestic workers in Saudi Arabia…the aforementioned country takes a step to catch up with labor laws circa 1400.

For the first time, Indonesian maids working in Saudi Arabia will be guaranteed a monthly wage, time off, and contact with their loved ones, under a new agreement signed by the Gulf kingdom and Jakarta this week.

Wo, generous. A wage! Time off! Permission to phone!

Human rights groups say the pact is a step towards ensuring the protection of foreign workers’ basic rights in Saudi Arabia. But it fails to address a worrying trend of domestic helpers filing complaints of exploitation and abuse only to face counter-allegations by their employers of “theft, witchcraft or adultery,” according to Human Rights Watch.

See? What about that kind of “false accusation” eh? Is Ben Radford equally worried about that sort of thing? Does he write about it much? Or ever?

Earlier this month, King Abdullah pardoned an Indonesian maid, who was on death row after being convicted in 2003 of “casting a magic spell on her employer and his family,” a spokesman for the Indonesian Embassy told Saudi news site, Arab news.

She returned to her home in West Java, but others haven’t been so lucky. Some 41 other Indonesian workers face possible death sentences in Saudi Arabia on charges ranging from black magic to stealing, adultery and murder, according to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry and local non-profit groups.

Many facing charges claim they suffered long-term abuse or exploitation at the hands of employers, according to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s director for legal aid and protection of Indonesian nationals overseas, Tatang Budie Utama Razak.

“When I observe why they killed their employer, most of them were not mentally ready (to work overseas),” Razak told CNN.

“They have to work unlimited hours, they have take care of the children, take care of the house, (their salaries are) unpaid, they cannot go out, (and) they cannot contact their families,” he said.

Still, there are false accusations. People can choose what they write about. Radford and Tavris can write about false accusations against Important Men. That’s their right.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Huh. The stars must be aligned. Or is it the fates? Or the demons? Something. There was another post by a Big Skeptic yesterday on the subject of False Allegations of Sexual Assault. Two in one day. How about that!

It almost looks planned, doesn’t it. Arranged. Timed to coincide.

This one is by Ben Radford. It’s very long and much of it is very particular, but he also does some generalizing.

False accusations are of particular interest to skeptics because skepticism has often been at the forefront of giving voice to the wrongly accused. From the Salem witch trials (in which innocent young women were falsely accused of being witches) to the Satanic Panic moral panic of the 1980s and 1990s (in which dozens of innocent men and women were falsely accused of sexually assaulting children and others) and hundreds of examples in between, skeptics have often been there to remind the public to ask for evidence before rushing to judgment. Indeed, the brilliant CSI Fellow Carol Tavris just recently wrote an e-skeptic piece about this in relation to recent accusations against Woody Allen.

Indeed, and how helpful that it was published not “recently” but the same day Radford posted his piece. His “Indeed” looks rather artificial there, as if he’s claiming a coincidence that isn’t a coincidence. (He remembers the Salem witch trials wrong, by the way. The young girls were the accusers; the accused were older.)

Anyway. Sure, false accusations are of particular interest to skeptics, and rightly so. But that interest shouldn’t obscure the interest of non-false accusations, and how many of those get dismissed or worse. False accusations are a bad thing, and so are true accusations that are not believed. It’s especially bad when accusations are not believed because the people making them have less power and influence and status than the people they accuse. This is a situation that’s not unknown, in fact it happens quite a lot.

Think of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia for instance. It’s notorious that they are treated like dirt and that their employers can abuse them with impunity. Then again, maybe some exhausted domestic worker has made a false accusation against an employer – although it seems unlikely, since no one cares about non-false accusations, so why would anyone bother to make a false one? But maybe it has happened. That’s a bad thing, but all the abuse is a bad thing too.

I find Radford’s attention to false accusations somewhat…pointed.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Saturday Night Live gives you: chess for girls!

It’s sarcastic, and yet…it could just as easily be straight up.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The first thing I saw when I went to Twitter just now:

Sara E. Mayhew @saramayhew 31m

Fcking embarrassing to have such shitty speakers representing women. @wis3cfi: Women in Secularism 3 approaches by @opheliabenson

Ah yes, such “shitty speakers” as Taslima Nasreen, Susan Jacoby, Rebecca Goldstein, Katha Pollitt, Barbara Ehrenreich, Soraya Chemaly, Amanda Knief…

Embarrassing indeed.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Carol Tavris takes a look at the Dylan Farrow-Woody Allen matter at Michael Shermer’s Skeptic.

The first part is good. I agree with all of it; it’s why I was careful not to say I “believed” Dylan Farrow or that I thought all claims of rape or sexual assault should be believed, just like that no matter what. It’s why I pointed out that DF’s memory could be wrong, without any intention or malice.

I was also dismayed to read claims by many of Dylan Farrow’s supporters that have long been scientifically disproved:

• Children never lie about sexual abuse.
• If a memory is vivid, detailed, and emotionally laden, that is evidence that it is accurate.
• In the case of Woody Allen and Dylan Farrow, one must be “lying.” As Aaron Bady posted in The New Inquiry, “If one of them has to be lying for the other to be telling the truth, then presuming the innocence of one produces a presumption of the other’s guilt. And Woody Allen cannot be presumed to be innocent of molesting a child unless she is presumed to be lying to us.”

Same here. But then, toward the end, things go slightly wrong.

The problem, as studies of cognitive dissonance show, is that as soon as we take sides, the brain sees to it that we will justify and solidify our position by seeking only the information that confirms it, and deny, ignore or minimize evidence that we could be wrong.

That is the reason for the vehemence with which many of Farrow’s supporters are shouting down the opposition. (The title of a research paper captured this phenomenon perfectly: “When in Doubt, Shout.”) Given a choice of whom to believe, they say, we must always side with the accuser in a rape or molestation case; otherwise we are supporting the patriarchal “rape culture.” As Bady writes, “if you are presuming his innocence by presuming her mendacity, you are rape cultured.” Anyone who asks skeptical questions of Dylan Farrow’s story is a pedophile or a sexist who is abetting the abuse of children and women. That kind of self-righteous certainty shuts down thoughtful inquiry. It does not help the cause of feminism or justice.

How, then, should we think about Dylan Farrow’s allegations? It’s relevant that they occurred during a bitter custody dispute, when Mia Farrow’s understandable rage at Allen over his affair with Soon Yi was going at full blast. We might ask why Dylan is making her story public now. We might wonder whether she has been influenced by recovered-memory therapists or, as her brother Moses writes, by an angry and vengeful mother. We would want to take into account that this family remains bitterly divided. Most of all, we have to accept the most difficult lesson of critical thinking: tolerating uncertainty.

What we should not do, as my coauthor Elliot Aronson has said, is “sacrifice our skepticism on the altar of outrage.” Outrage is good when it leads to constructive, mindful efforts to promote justice—for innocent children and for innocent adults. But outrage without skepticism and science is a recipe for hysteria and witch hunts.

Notice anything? She forgot to follow her own instructions. That’s odd, isn’t it, since she had just given them. In one paragraph she said “as soon as we take sides, the brain sees to it that we will justify and solidify our position by seeking only the information that confirms it, and deny, ignore or minimize evidence that we could be wrong,” and in the next three paragraphs she discusses only Dylan Farrow’s allegations and not Woody Allen’s claims. It’s relevant that he’d been seeing a therapist because of his obsessive possessive relationship with Dylan; we might wonder whether he had some strange views about adoption and siblings and suitable sex partners; we would want to take into account that he never did see anything wrong with secretly fucking his long-term partner’s daughter.

So, yeah. Tavris is right that we don’t know, and that excess certainty is just that. But she’s quite wrong that that applies only to what Dylan Farrow has said.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Malala Yousafzai is supporting Fahma Mohamed in her campaign to get education about female genital mutilation into all schools in the UK.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Malala praised Fahma’s campaign, and joined her in calling for better education in schools about FGM. “I’ve watched every step of Fahma’s campaign and I think she is on the edge of something huge,” she said. “Over 140 million girls and women are mutilated – but like keeping girls out of school in Pakistan, we can come out together and be strong and change things for the next generation. I am her sister and I am at her side and I want her to be listened to I as I was.”

Fahma is 17, Malala is 16.

Malala, who has recovered well in the UK after receiving specialised treatment at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, compared the work done by Fahma and other members of the anti-FGM charity Integrate Bristol to her own battle for universal education. “I’m also trying to work for women’s rights and girls’ education and I think the campaign that you are doing is a part of my campaign as well,” she said. “[W]hen you talk about education you talk about quality education and it should be [known] all over the world about FGM – what it is and how can it affect the life of a girl. So I think it should be a part of education and we both will struggle for this. Because we can never achieve our goals unless we struggle for it, so I think this is the time to start it.”

Maybe that’s what girls are like. Maybe they actually have ideas in their heads. Maybe the people who carefully design extra-stupid toys and games for girls should pay more attention to girls like Fahma and Malala.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

As Blanche Quizno points out, there was this:

It’s not a pink version of Battleship, it’s the women segregated in the kitchen doing the chores. Which is more infuriating?

I can’t choose between them.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Hey look what time it is – it’s almost March, so it’s almost time for Women in Secularism 3.

Taslima Nasreen will be there. She just tweeted a bit of good news – finally someone in Bangladesh has spoken up for her. The National Human Rights Commission has done that.

National Human Rights Commission Chairman Mizanur Rahman is unhappy about the lack of initiatives to bring feminist writer Taslima Nasrin back home.

His reaction came at a view-exchange meeting on empowerment of women held at CIRDAP auditorium in the capital on Wednesday.

Addressing the audience, he said: “What have you done to bring Taslima Nasrin back. Under what authority, a state deprives its citizen of the right to return home?”

Rahman said every citizen had the right to live in their motherland.

He said in an angry tone: “Taslima Nasrin couldn’t return home even after the death of her mother and relatives to see them for one last time.”

“She speaks against militants, is this her fault?”

Nasreen, a physician by training, was compelled to leave the country amid threat of militants following publication of her novel ‘Lajja’.

Since then, she has been living abroad – presently in India.

And in just a few weeks she’ll be at Women in Secularism 3.

Also, Susan Jacoby and Rebecca Goldstein are going to do an onstage conversation to talk about “Why Women Are Too Polite About Religion.” I look forward to that – it’s the other side of the “outspoken atheism is more of a guy thing” mistake. One reason people make that mistake is because a hell of a lot of people think that’s how things are divided: women do politeness and men do outspokenness. Women are pink and fluffy and need pink Monopoly and pink pens, and men are normal and sandpaperish and know how to be direct and frank. I look forward to hearing Susan Jacoby and Rebecca Goldstein skewering that notion.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

As Kausik said – this is always relevant, alas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCyw3prIWhc

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Lordy, how silly.

American Atheists got an information booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and announced it today, and promptly had its table snatched away because…I don’t know, because it turned out that atheists are atheists, or something. I did say it was silly.

Politico explains.

“American Atheists misrepresented itself about their willingness to engage in positive dialogue and work together to promote limited government,” said CPAC spokesperson Meghan Snyder in an email.

Earlier Tuesday, after announcing the group’s participation, American Atheists’ president David Silverman told CNN, “I am not worried about making the Christian right angry. The Christian right should be angry that we are going in to enlighten conservatives. The Christian right should be threatened by us.”

When CPAC spoke to Silverman about this “divisive and inappropriate language,” Snyder said, “he pledged that he will attack the very idea that Christianity is an important element of conservatism.”

“People of any faith tradition should not be attacked for their beliefs, especially at our conference. He has left us with no choice but to return his money,” she said.

But “attacking” the idea that Christianity is an important element of conservatism is not the same thing as “attacking” people for their beliefs.

Now, in all fairness, if Dave had been harassing the people behind CPAC for several months, calling them names and mocking them and tweeting at them, I could certainly see why they would decline his request for a booth. But that’s not what happened. Saying they can’t have a booth after all because he wanted to tell them that Christianity is not an important element of conservatism is just silly.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Oh, so that’s what the burqa is for.

TORONTO - A Muslim man wore a traditional woman’s burka and female shoes before he strangled his estranged wife in the company of their toddler son.

Abdul Malik Rustam admitted he donned the headdress — which disguised his face — and wedge shoes when he killed his wife, Shaher Bano Shahdady, after she asked for a divorce.

…

The killing occurred only two weeks after the 21-year-old woman received social assistance and moved into an apartment at 3131 Eglinton Ave. E.

Shahdady, who emigrated from Pakistan to Canada with her family when she was a year old, returned to her homeland when she was 12 or 13.

Rustam and Shahdady were wed in an arranged marriage in their native Pakistan in 2008 when she was 17 or 18 and he was 25.

Arranged? When she was 17 or 18? Is “arranged” really the right word there? Was it really arranged and not forced? I don’t know, but the power differential is obvious enough.

Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, said the murder is an honour killing that raises two disturbing issues for him.

“This attire has become an attire of choice for various crimes, terrorists, and now this is the first time the burka has been used as an instrument to a murder,” Fatah said. “The burka is protected under the guise of religious freedom.”

He added that the burka enabled the killer “to gain access into the home.

“Had it not been for the burka, she would not have let him gain entry at 1 in the morning and would still be alive today,” he said.

“It follows the whole question of arranged marriages, for girls born or raised over here, to men overseas who simply cannot visualize or imagine their wives having professional relationships with any man,” Fatah said.

The whole thing is a nightmare.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Exactly. EXACTLY.

Via George Takei on Facebook.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

We knew it all along. The motive force behind the campaign to get rid of abortion rights is hatred of women as women, women separate from babies, women as people.

Alexandra Petri in the Washington Post:

…just last week, Virginia State Senator Steve Martin posted on his Facebook wall, in response to a Valentine from a pro-choice group, that “Once a child does exist in your womb, I’m not going to assume a right to kill it just because the child’s host (some refer to them as mothers) doesn’t want it.” (He updated the post on Monday afternoon to change the language from “host” to “bearer of the child” because THAT fixes it.)

The fetus is a child, while the woman is a host. The fetus is a full person, while the woman is a mere incubator.

Women are expendable. They’re interchangeable. They’re basically just machines. They don’t matter, except for their machine-function. That’s why they’re the ones who gestate the babies, while the important people who really are fully people, men, get on with the important work that only people can do. Like stand-up comedy for instance.

Now Martin claims he was joking. Really? Look, when you support a fetal personhood bill and vote for the Virginia bill that mandated ultrasounds, it seems safe to assume that literally nothing you say calling women Baby-Hosts is a joke.

Precisely.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)